be courageous

photo credit: s.r.p. taken after immigration. summer, 2005.


I’ve debated writing this article for months, or maybe even a year now, and yet… and yet… when it comes to the truth, and by truth I mean ultimate Truth, there is nothing written here that is not true and so with that said, let me begin to tell you of my tales of working with, or trying to work cooperatively with INS ~ that is the immigration & naturalization service and USCIS ~ United States Customs & Immigration Services.

As a Green Card holder, I came to America with my mother and stepfather while I was a teen but just about old enough to attend university, my primary reason for coming to the states. It seemed to my grandmother, with whom I had been living and who had raised me, that in the U.S. there would be more opportunity for what I wanted to do, and more, I could make a clean break from our blue collar background because there was less of a class system in America ~ and overall, I’ve found this to be largely true. Not to say that one does not exist, only that it exists in a less defined form. One is able to travel more fluidly and seamlessly between the porous borders of class from poor to mid to upper.

I arrived in New York City and though I hardly remember this, went with my mother to INS and was given a Green Card and had my photo taken – a ¾ profile at the time, and my mother I suppose, filled out the forms because I was not yet quite of age (a few months shy, as it turns out). That leaves me not knowing with any exactness, the process of how it is that I obtained my Green Card, only that:

Mother had married an American while still in the UK and so planned, naturally, to make her home with him in the United States.

My grandmother would be sure that I would go with her, because opportunity was rich and perhaps she balked, perhaps not. I don’t really remember. I just remember the push to go, so it wasn’t really my choice.

The Green Card I got was legal and had an expiration date that said NA<’/b> and stated specifically that it did not expire.

Now, at some point, the law changed such that for every immigrant, no matter that your Green Card may say it does not expire, you must still renew said card every ten years. I certainly didn’t get a press release and I tell you, it would be some comfort to know that the INS actually tracked immigrants enough that a letter would or could be sent to the current home address.

Hell, is Sears and Neiman Marcus can LL Bean can find me, why can’t the government? And so, my tale begins here, because as I was coming back into the country after going home to the UK, a customs officer told me “Ma’am, please step aside.”

I’m not one to argue with a man with a gun on his hip or anyone really, so I did as he said. He then explained to me that he had every right under the law to put me right on a plane and send me back to England because my Green Card was no longer valid and had expired.

“But, But” I told him, “Look, it says right there ‘NA’ in capital letters.”
“Doesn’t matter: the law changed. You need to renew every ten years and this is very out of date. I don’t legally have to let you back into this country.”

At that point, it seemed likely perhaps that he might put me on a plane back home. My husband saw what was gong on and interjected and although the customs officer didn’t want to be interrupted, he listened as he was told Yes, I am married to an American, this was an honest mistake, how could I have known of the law change unless I checked the INS site every day etc etc. and true enough. While I agree that ignorance is any excuse, I can also say that there are some things that simply cannot be “intuited” for lack of a better word. My own mother had not told me of the law, because she herself did not know.

In fact, none of my British friends knew and it was I, the bearer of bad news, who told them all that they were not illegal immigrants ~ the pejorative term, “wet backs” as customs would call us, no matter where we are from (*not my term – I’m simply repeating what I myself was recently called).

I have never seen a group of Episcopalians so upset and distraught. Tanqueray & Tonic was poured and consumed in large amounts after church in the church garden while we discussed what to do about our Green card situation.

I was afraid of this big government. More, 9/11 had happened and that only made it harder, I thought, to get a Green Card. No, I’m obviously not a terrorist, but I can understand if the government had tightened up the laws now, making it harder to get a card. Still, I went to the INS web site (which wasn’t easy to find at first – or not the right one anyway) and searched for the correct form.

Now, there are various forms you could obtain depending on your immigrant status. The list is long enough and it is imperative that you obtain the correct form, otherwise, your claim will be denied. More, since my card had already expired, I could not renew my card easily through the website by filling out some forms and using a credit card. I had to make an appointment with INS, find my local INS office, take the form in person, and I had to pay with either a money order or a certified check from an attorney or else my transaction would be invalid. note: INS does not accept cash or personal checks. Good ole American currency is not good enough for our government.

Well, I can’t even say “our” anymore, can I? I’ve been told to “get out”. I’ve been told “I don’t belong here.” I’ve been told all sorts of nasty things by people who just don’t think I have a right to be here, even though I’m probably more patriotic than they are by virtue of the fact that I never take this country for granted.

Here is what I did, and it is convoluted, but I want to help anyone else:

I finally found the correct form and downloaded it from the USCIS.gov website, in my case, a Green Card expired renewal form I-90.

Finding the office: I found my local INS center office and used the “infopass” system to make an appointment to save time (be sure to print out the appointment form because it has a bar code that they must scan otherwise, you will be in line even longer. The USCIS Infopass allows you to bypass inmost of the lines, so it’s well worth registering, even if it does mean the government can track you by your personal information, so what? If you have nothing to hide, what do you care? I don’t.

Appointment: I went to my appointment with my I-90 where I was informed by an officer that I need “new photographs – now straight on, no longer the ¾ that I had gotten in advance. The law had changed (again, how would anyone know this. The website at that time said nothing of it.)


FingerprintsI was told I needed to be “re-fingerprinted.”


Fee: I did all of this. I did it there. I got re-fingerprinted. I paid for it. I turned all of this in and when I got to the desk I asked, the officer specifically, how much so we could get the correct money order. He told me specifically, $175 dollars.


Getting the money order: My husband ran out to the local CVS and got a money order in the exact amount we had been told by the INS officer.


Ultimate Rejection: A few weeks later, I received a letter from INS telling me that my claim had been denied because of the “wrong amount on the money order.”

Now understand, we had followed every step to the letter. It was through no fault of mine or my husband’s that we were told the wrong amount and by an INS officer at immigration!. No matter. The application was considered officially “rejected.”

I was shocked and besides which, INS had always scared me for illogical reasons, not because I ever did anything wrong, but because I knew that they could hold anyone for any reason without giving any real cause and that they could deny you or anyone an attorney. I also know they can separate me from my husband at any time because of my “status” and that is an awful thing because for all intents and purposes, I am legal in this country and have done everything correctly.

I could have easily flown under the radar: I chose not to. I chose to come out and apply like a good citizen and Lo! I was told the wrong fee.

Never mind: we would begin again, only this time, my attorney would handle the details because this was all just too confusing and we had done it right the first time and what more could we do? We went back to INS with the new I-90 and everything on June 1st and had just missed the cut-off day for doing it in person, we were told (the website didn’t say this and note that Infopass had allowed me to set up an appointment) that “they no longer process form I-90. When I explained that it was an INS officer who had told us the wrong amount and I presented the sheet to the front desk woman, she took the letter from the officer and never gave it back (which I did not notice until I got home). We would have to start all over again and this time, by mail.

But hey, what choice do we have if we expect to go to Paris this autumn.

Oh, did I mention that all of the stress of this has caused several grand mal seizures and that once, I was pulled out of the security line for shaking because I am epileptic and because as I said, officialdom makes me nervous always and I’m more scared of someone blowing up INS while I’m there – because it seems like it might be a terrorist target and that frightens me, and I shake all the time anyway, so yes, I shake. I wasn’t “up to anything” and I don’t blame them for asking. But when told and shown my ID bracelet and my Medic Alert card, I expect that to be the end of the story. Yet it wasn’t. I was still questioned, albeit not for long, but still… I understand safety, but I am about the last person in the world who is a threat to the U.S. or anyone. Hell, I wont’ even eat meat and am a vegetarian and you think I’d hurt a person? Hey, I’d like to think that were it I on a plane with a terrorist I’d be one of the people who would charge the front because I’m going to die anyway and I will not go down without a fight. That is that.

I hired an attorney. It would be easier, and although we had an attorney the first time around, he had only filled out the forms. This time, I asked him to handle everything from filling out the forms, to making sure the forms were correct, the fees, the “biometric” that one could easily overlook if you weren’t looking.

Form: Form I-90 (the recent version that expires in 2006 and says so in 4pt type at the top of the page. If you download the 2004 form and send it in, your application will be rejected and form G-4 noting that you are giving power of attorney to your attorney to act on your behalf.

Photographs New face forward photographs. Get them done at INS because that way, nobody can argue they are the wrong size etc and you can pay in cash for this service. Yes, the fee is more, but it’s ten dollars well spent.


Money orders One in the amount of $185 and another in the amount of $70 (if you were under the age of fourteen, so this varies) as a “biometric fee.”


Mail or FedEx: Since May 31st of 2005, you can no longer file your application in person. You must mail your applications and fees but not the photographs to the California Lockbox; get the address from the USCIS Website and if you have any doubt, call INS and just put the phone and speaker and wait the twenty minutes or hour or whatever. It’s worth it.


Receipt A receipt should arrive approximately thirty days from the day you mailed your application, though I’ve been told there is a backlog now since the change of law.


Appointment The receipt will have a date and time of an appointment that you must attend bring:

your old green card:

supporting documentation ~ passport, birth certificate, driver’s license, marriage certificate. The more the better and don’t’ forget your two photographs and your old Green Card, as without this matter, you will not get a temporary stamp in your passport.

have a physical ahead of time and make sure your inoculations are up to date and bring any medical records with you just in case you need them. You can also bring finger prints if you feel you want to be doubly safe, and get those done at your local INS branch right before the appointment, since if you were young, you will need those.

the two photographs, head on, that you had taken at the INS office.

I recently went back to INS to explain that I am trying to get myself sorted out and legal and that I need a stamp in my passport so that I am truly “legal” in this country, that is “officially legal” since I am legal if I am married to an American (note, not a marriage of convenience, etc, but one of great love, as anyone who knows us knows…).

The officer was, at first, not very sympathetic to my plight: that I simply needed a new stamp in my passport so that I could travel this September because I had my I-90 in process, but until it comes through, I need stamp to be legal in this country. She become more sympathetic when I told her how we had done all the correct things, gone through the motions and been told the wrong fee by an INS officer. She at first I think didn’t believe us, but she eventually did. Perhaps she had worked there long enough and seen it all. I can’t say. Only that I do know that she believed me.

Still, after checking the system, she found that my I-90 had not yet been processed, leaving me w/ no proof that I had even filled out the form again or that it was in transit. If I had a “receipt” she told me, then she could give me the stamp. Without it, I would have nothing. She then told me that no matter that I had an older stamp in my passport, I was still not legal and that I would not be until I got my new Green Card.

I called the INS, which is now the Department of Homeland Security or a division thereof, or at least, according to their recording with the guy with the scary and officious voice. I asked the person who answered, after a long wait, if I could leave the country this Autumn to go to Paris and was told that if I did that, I would be taken off of the plane in leg irons and cold be detained or returned to my homeland ~ the U.K, no matter that I have made my home in the U.S. for so very long. It doesn’t matter.

I’ve been here longer than my son, and that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that my mother is a U.S. citizen at this point, or that I have a step-son and a husband and a whole family here. None of this matters. All that matters is this one piece of paper.

When I had the forms filled out, the last thing I found out was that the I-90 must be filled out in BLACK ink or it will be rejected. My own attorney told me he had never in his career had a legal document returned for using the standard blue ink and couldn’t believe it, yet it’s true. He didn’t’ doubt me: it was right there in block letters and thank god, we also, or he also, caught the fact that the form I had filled out was the week old expired one and had downloaded the newer version and filled that out.

Had we sent the 2004 form, which had been up until two days before, it would have again been rejected.

So what now? Now we wait, and we wait and we wait, and while we have given it plenty of time to plan for a trip in September, there are “no guarantees” homeland security tells me and that they are “backlogged” and more, that I “may or may not” get a stamp in my passport allowing me to travel “depending on the INS officer and the appointment.” I’m not exactly clear on what that means other than perhaps how I am evaluated and the likes.

I think, Why wouldn’t you let me travel? What threat do you think I pose and don’t I have some right to know the basis of such rejection and more, even once I explained the reasons (that this all began with an ins officer giving me the wrong amount, only ten dollars short I was told that it didn’t matter “why” that it was “rejected” regardless.

My attorney told me of a woman who left the country anyway, without the proper documentation and was taken off the plane in leg irons and shackles and held for questioning and sent home, just as I had been warned could happen to me. I would never leave the country without proper documentation, so it is a non-issue, but what is an issue is whether or not the proper documentation will come in time. It will come, but with my luck, a day late ~ and that would be awful, and for an already depressed person, even more depressing.

When I think of all this, I do have more seizures, but that is how it goes. I want to tell INS this. I want to tell them how ill, physically and emotionally this upset is making me. How it feels to be a foreigner in what I now call my home now that I have finally come to accept it. I want to tell them how hard it was to leave England but how happy I am now… but it doesn’t matter. I just have to hope and do my best, like anyone, and believe that INS is a fair and just and efficient system that will see this through for me.

Pray for me, and pray for small mercies, as a friend wrote, “that they might pray for us.”